[1988-07-10-NWA-Great American Bash '88] Barry Windham vs Dusty Rhodes

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA US Champion Barry Windham vs Dusty Rhodes - NWA Great American Bash 88

 

I will say NWA has had two molten hot crowds for their big events this year with Clash I in Greensboro and GAB in Baltimore. I have seen this match twice years ago. First time, I thought this was great, but the second time I thought it was horrible. I am now in the middle. The shine of this was excellent, super hot and the crowd loved it. Windham was great at feeding, bumping and selling for Big Dust. Dusty was his usual wicked charismatic self. DDT->Crossbody was a great early fall. Then I loved the big looping punches and Bionic Elbow for JJ! Crowd popped huge. Dusty got a couple more over on Windham. Then Dillon distracted Dusty and Windham jumped him. He put on the Claw for what seemed like an eternity and just dragged the match to a grinding halt. Ref got bumped when Windham went for the superplex. Dusty hits a press slam from the top and then big elbow but no ref. Here is his friend, Hands of Stone Ronnie Garvin to help him and he knocks out Dusty. WAIT! WHAT! He knocked out Dusty. Ref comes to, Windham applies claw and wins the match. In the back, Garvin is rubbing all of JJ and Gary Hart's money all over his body. Ronnie Garvin has been pretty aimless this year, but way too many shocking turns. Disapprove. Garvin was on his way out the door anyways. Amazing shine, everything else did nothing for me. ***

[El-P]

Damn, Windham was awesome in 88. He made Dusty's tired old ass look better than seemingly anyone has, ever. The match is excellent until the damn claw hold, in which Dusty seems far too happy to stay in forever. His hope spots look goofier than shit too. Then a ref bump and a complete shit finish. Dusty's booking was awful at this point, no wonder what happened in the newt few months. But Windham was godlike in 87/88 and this is another testament to that fact.

[El McKell]

Windham is great at this point of his career and is his usual self here. But Dusty in the early going of this gives so much more effort and works much harder than he normally does in this period. The fucking crossbody off the top caught me off guard and is awesome. The claw is definitely long but I think Dusty does a great job when he's in it of making it feel like there's always something happening, he's always trying to fire himself up out of it or falling deeper into it risking defeat (and does both of these things in an very very Dusty Rhodes manner).

I really thought this was great until the shitty finish ***3/4

Also Barry Windham couldn't have dyed his roots before a PPV, c'mon